The Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: Translated Into English ...

* Hand,' which Cæsar was constrained to do to avoid farther Suspicion. This proved to be a Love-Letter, that Servilia, Cato's Sister, had written to him •, which Cato Cæsar called having read, he threw it back to him, sayDrunkard by ing, There, Drunkard, take it. This, I fay, Cato, in the was rather a Word of Disdain and Anger, Senate. ( than an express Reproach of this Vice, as we often rate those that anger us, with the first injurious Words that come into our Mouths, though by no Means applicable to those we are offended at. To which may be added, that the Vice which Cato cast in his Dish, is wonderfully near a-kin to that wherein he had caught Casar j Venus accent- for Bacchus and Venus, according to the Profanitt Bac- verb, agree like Hand in Glove -, but, with dlus- me, Venus is most sprightly when I am most

sober.

The Examples of his Mildness and Clemency to those Cæsar'/ Cle- by whom he had been offended, are infinite * mency toward* I mean, besides those he gave during the bh Enemta. Time of the Civil Wars, which, as plainly enough appears by his Writings, he practised to cajole his Enemies, and to make them less afraid of his future Dominion and Victory. But I must also fay, that, if these Examples are not sufficient Proofs of his natural Good Temper, they, at least, manifest a marvellous Confidence and Magnanimity in this Personage. He has often sent back whole Armies, after having overcome them, to his Enemies, without Ransom, or deigning so much as to bind them by Oath, if not to favour him, at least no more to bear Arms against him. He has, three or four fimes, taken some of Pompey's Captains Prisoners, and as oft set them a* Liberty '. Pompey declared all those to be his Enemies, who did not follow him to the War, and he proclaimed all those to be his Friends, who fat still, and did not actually take Arms against him. To such Captains of his, as ran away from him to alter their Condition, he sent, moreover, their Arms, Horses, and Equipage. The Cities he had taken by Force, he left at full Liberty to take which Side they pleased, imposing no other Garrison

upon
upon them, but the Memory of his, Mildness, and Clemency. He gave strict Charge, on the Day of his great Battle of Pharsalia, that, without the utmost Necessity, no one should lay a Hand upon the Citizens, of Rome. Theses in my Opinion, were very hazardous Proceedings; and 'tis no Wonder, if those in our Civil War, who, like him, fight against the ancient State of their Country, do not follow his Example; they are extraordinary Means, such as only Cæsar's Fortune and his admirable Foresight could happily conduct. When I consider his incomparable Magnanimity, I excuse Victory, that it could not disengage itself from him, even in that most unjust and wicked Cause. To return to his Clemency % we have many strong Exam.ples of it in the Time of his Government, when, all Things being reduced to his Power, he had no more Need to dissemble. Caius Memmius had writ very severe Orations against him, which he as sharply answered: Yet he soon after used his Interest to make him Consul. Caius Calvus, who had composed several injurious Epigrams against him, having imployed his Friends to mediate a Reconciliation with him, Cæsar, of his own Accord, wrote first to him. And our good Catullus, Who had so ruffled him, under the Name of Mamurra, coming to make his Excuses to him^ he made him, the fame Day, sup with him at his Table. Having Intelligence of some who spoke ill of him, he did no more but, in a public Oration, declare that he had Nor_ tice of it. He also less feared his Enemies than he hated them. Some Conspiracies and Cabals that were made against his Life, being discovered to him, he satisfied himself, in publishing by Proclamation, that they were known tt> him, without further prosecuting the Conspirators.

1Cofar's Life, .by Suetonius, sect. 75.

As to the Respect he had to his Friends; Caius Oppius being with him upon a Journey, and finding himself ill,

* he left him the only Lodging he had for himself, and lay

* all Night upon the hard Ground in the open Air.* As to his Justice; * he put a beloved Servant of his to Death fof

* lying with a Noble Roman's Wife, though there was no

* Complaint made.' Never bad Mao more Moderation in his Victory, nor more Resolution in his adverse For*

mm,

. . - . I But
But all these good Inclinations were stifled and spoiled

• 'by his furious Ambition, by which he suf

BounAfiAm. fdhimsc]fto te sofartransported that a

titton the only -. . . r '_

je«/»«/ C»- Man may easily maintain, that that Passion far'/ Aaioasy was the Rudder whereby all his Actions were

T&swst steered: °faliDCralMan' iCmadchim *

tdtbJcZl Pub,icRobber, to supply his Bounty and

Ken. Profusion, and made him utter this vile and

most unjust Saying, * That, if the most wick

* ed and profligate Persons in the World had been faith

* ful in serving him towards his Advancement, he would

* cherish and prefer them to the utmost of his Power, as

* much as the best of Men:' It intoxicated him with such excessive Vanity, that he dared to boast, in the Presence of his Fellow-Citizens, * That he had made the great

* Commonwealth of Rome a Name without Body, and

* without Form;' and to fay, * That his Answers, for

* the future, should stand for Laws;' and also to receive the Body of the Senate, coming towards him, fitting; to suffer himself to be adored, and to have Divine Honours paid to him in his own Presence. To conclude, this sole Vice, in my Opinion, spoiled, in him, the richest Fund of Good-nature that ever was, and has rendered his Name abominable to all good Men, for aiming to erect his Glory upon the Ruins of his Country, and the Subversion of the greatest and most flourishing Republic the World shall ever fee. There might, on the contrary, many Examples be produced of great Men, whom Pleasures have made to neglect the Conduct of their Affairs, as Mark Anthony, and others; but where Love and Ambition should be in equal Balance, and come to jostle with equal Forces, I make no Doubt but the last would have the Turn of the Scale.

. ,'' . i. e. . As a Gem mines in yellow Gold enchac'd, On Neck, or Head, for Decoration plac'd'; Or as by Art Iv'ry does Lustre get Amidst the meaner Soil of Sable Jet.

* being endowed with singular Beauty, and so excessive,

* that the chastest Eyes could not chastely behold its Luf

* tre; displeased with himself for leaving Ib much Eiamc « and Fever as he every-where kindled, without Relief,

* entered into a furious Spite against himself, and those

* rich Endowments Nature had so liberally conferred up

* on him; as if a Man were responsible to himself for the .* Faults 0/ others: And purposely flashed and disfigured,

* with many Wounds and Scars, the perfect Symmetry c and Proportion that Nature had so curiously 'imprinted

* in his Face "/ To give my free Opinion, I more admire than honour such Actions: Such Excesses are Enemies to my Rules.

The Design was conscientious and good, but, I think, a little defective in Prudence. What if his wherein the Deformity served afterwards to make others Action was guilty of the Sin of Hatred, or Contempt, or bkmeablt. of Envy, at the Glory of so commendable an Action; or of Calumny, interpreting this Humour a mad Ambition? Is there any Form from whence Vice cannot, if it will, extract Occasion to exercise itself one Way or another? It had been more just, and also more noble, to have made

from that infinite Number of crabbed and ^eZm&es double-meaning Rules that fetter a Man of s"mtb?com" strict Honesty in civil Life, are, in my.Opinion Offices of nion, very discreet, what peculiar Seventy Society have soever they impose upon themselves in so do'£■». inS- 'Tis, in some Sort, a Kind of dying to

avoid the Pain of living well. They may have other Reward, but the Reward of the Difficulty I never could think they had, npr that in Uneasiness there can be any Thing beyond keeping himself upright in the Waves of the busy World,, truly and exactly performing and answering all Parts of his Duty. 'Tis peradventure more easy for a Man to live clear from the whole Sex, than to maintain himself exactly in all Points in the Company of his Wife •, and a Man may more incuriously slip intt> Want than Abundance, duly dispensed. Custom, carried on according to Reason, has in it more of Sharpness than Abstinence has: Moderation is a Virtue that has more Work than Sufferance. The Well-living of Scipio has a thousand Fashions, that of Diogenes but one. This as much excels the ordinary Lives in Innocency, as the most exquisite and accomplished excel that in Utility and Force. •>, '■' t?i' ■' • ■•'./» ; ■ ■-■ '<' ,i

CHAP. XXXIV.

Observations on Juliuscæsar'j Methods of making War. '■ •> ■•

[.'•"! -it :- -,-■ • . I ,. \

VT"* IS said of many great Leaders, « That they have J[ * had certain Books in particular Esteem, as AlexQ r y r' 'ander the Great, Homer; Scipio Africanus* merries T~ * Xenopbon j Marcus Brutus, Polybius; Charles proper Lesson < the Fifth, Philip de Gomines; and'tis said, for every Ge- t tnat) jn our Times, Machiavel is elsewhere wekI in Repute j' but the late Marshal Strofy,